I am super honored to feature Jennifer Snyder on StartaMomBlog.com! We have become great friends online and have spent hours talking and helping each other grow.

She’s a fantastic woman, blogger and friend. And she has grown her amazing Facebook group into a thriving tribe online.

In the post below, she goes into detail how she found her product idea, put it together and marketed it. She’s made over $7,000 from that one product alone. And she’s helped countless women.

I hope you enjoy the post! Be sure to join her Facebook group, Women Winning Online, so you can get to know her better!

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*This post contains affiliate links.

How I Made $7,282 on My First Blogging Product

I started Women Winning Online to teach other women how to grow their blogs and make money online. My goal was to help women, teach them, and support them on their blogging journey. But I also knew that I wanted to make money myself through blogging. I thought I would learn how to do it and then teach others women how to do it. A win-win for all!

Then I started researching how to make money blogging. Every veteran blogger says it take 2-3 years before you can make money blogging. That you need at least 50,000 pageviews and an email list of 10,000 people.

I took that information as a personal challenge. It felt like it was this club that I could only get into once I achieved those stats.

So I set out to do what I do best. Challenge the status quo.

I Quit Blogging

On February 8, 2016 I started my blog Women Winning Online. By March 31, 2016 I quit blogging.

I had read an idea on Jon Morrow’s blog that I should build my email list first, then start my blog. Jon built a list of 10,000 people on his email list and then launched his blog. Boom– built in audience.

I liked this idea a lot and figured I had nothing to lose! I had been blogging for a month and a half and was averaging about 20 page views a day. It was pretty depressing!

So I quit blogging on the 31st and set out to find my people, to find my tribe. On April 1st, 2016 the Women Winning Online Facebook group was born.

Creating the Women Winning Online Facebook group was the best thing I did for my blog! It was also one of the best decisions I have ever made for myself in business. I started the group to get seen by other bloggers. My goal was to get noticed and then they would read my blog.

Boy oh boy did I get so much more than that out of my group! It has been a humbling experience. First I got to know my women that I was writing for and in a way I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t started the group. Because it is a group of only women, they are more open to share their struggles and what they need help with.

Second, it did give me an opportunity to share my knowledge with the women in the group. Yes this brought attention to my blog but it brought me something else too. Confidence. Confidence that I desperately needed. I had been in another industry for 27 years. I was scared to do something different. I was scared I wouldn’t be good at it and people would think I didn’t know what I was talking about. Starting my group gave me the confidence that I needed. The confidence that I could help my tribe of women. It has been such a blessing for me!

Finally building my tribe has given me a great sense of community. When I was blogging and only getting 10 pageviews a day I was so lonely! My tribe is filled with women that get the ups and downs of blogging. We share ideas and we collaborate. We are there for each other to celebrate wins and commiserate over our losses. My tribe has made blogging a lot less lonely and a heck of a lot more fun!

How to get the Traffic of Big Blogs

In getting to know the women I was writing for I began to understand their struggles. They started their blogs but they didn’t know what to do next. They loved writing but they were frustrated because no one was reading their posts. In fact, the question I heard over and over was “How do I get more traffic to my blog?”

When I realized this was the number one struggle for bloggers I went out and I researched. So many blog posts out there don’t go into great detail about how to get more blog traffic. I was frustrated like the women in my tribe. It felt like there was this big secret about how to get more blog traffic and no one was willing to share it. I wanted to break that secret wide open.

I set out to research all the big name bloggers and figure out how they went from small blogger to big blogger. I read their posts from when they first started out. I read their guest posts. I stalked them on social media. What did they do to get so many readers and so much traffic?!

After I did my research I sat down and thought about it and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Exposure.

They all went out there and got exposure for their blogs. They didn’t sit there, write a post, and hope people would read it. They went out there, talked to their ideal readers, and invited them back to their blogs. Exposure.

Get Exposure Fast

Now that I felt like I knew the secret to getting more blog traffic I wanted to figure out how to get it. How do you get more exposure as a brand new blogger? So many of the traffic strategies out there are outdated. Many of them were created before Facebook even existed.

The other thing I wanted to figure out is how do you get more traffic and get it fast. I knew that the average blogger quits after six months. Blogging is a lot of work and if we don’t see results it’s easy to get frustrated and quit. I wanted to help women get more traffic before that feeling of frustration set in.

So back to brainstorming I went. How does a blogger get more exposure when there are a lot of blogs out there? Then it hit me and I scrambled to my whiteboard and drew this out:

(Sorry about the rough picture. I was super excited about this discovery and had to rush to write it down!)

These pieces are the key to getting more exposure for your blog. These elements will bring people to your blog and bring you more traffic. You have to go where your niche is hanging out online, talk to them, help them, and then they will come to your blog.

For bloggers the best place to find your readers is on Pinterest, Facebook groups, and by networking with other bloggers in your niche. Armed with this information I set out to create my first program, Find Your Tribe Online.

Created My First Product

Now that I knew how to get more exposure for bloggers it was time to find all the pieces of the puzzle and put it together. My plan was to create a spreadsheet of data with the best Pinterest group boards, Facebook groups, and top bloggers in each niche.

As I was researching I began to realize the data was great. I knew the data would help bloggers and I knew it would sell my program. But as a marketing specialist I knew it had to be more than just the data. The data is great, but if you don’t know what to do with it, nothing happens.

When the spreadsheet was done, there were:

• 140 Pinterest group boards
• 160 Facebook groups
• 155 popular bloggers covering 14 niches.

It was a lot of data! A lot of awesome data!

Then I went to work on the marketing plan part of Find Your Tribe Online. I created a book that answered the following questions:

• How do I join Pinterest group boards?
• How many times do I pin to group boards a day?
• What do I do in Facebook groups to get people to see my blog?
• How do I engage with people on Facebook and help them?
• How to network the right way with popular bloggers?
• How to pitch guest posts to popular bloggers?

Find Your Tribe Online became more than just a spreadsheet of data. It grew into a program that would show bloggers the exact steps they needed to take to get exposure to their blogs. To get more readers, more traffic, and more engagement to their blogs. This was the exact thing my readers, my tribe told me they wanted. They want more traffic and I had just created the program that I believed would make it happen for them.

I launched Find Your Tribe Online on August 1, 2016. By the end of the first day, I had sold 24 copies of my first program. I was over the moon excited! My first program had struck a chord with my readers and they bought it. It still gives me chills!

Testimonials Changed Everything

When you launch a program you hope for the best. You hope that people will take the time and actually use what you have created. You hope that it will work for them. You hope they will take the time to share with you when your program works for them.

The thing with any course is that this can take time. Rarely do people buy courses and start working on them right away.

But Find Your Tribe Online was different. A few days after I launched the program my first two testimonials came in and I was shocked. Completely shocked.

In my previous blog I had sold a course and it took months to get my first testimonial. To get one in less than a week was crazy to me!

I thought about why this was different. Why was I getting testimonials from people only days after buying my program?

Because it is actionable content. The data in the spreadsheet makes people want to take action now. The program was also easy to implement and not overwhelming.

When I started getting more and more testimonials for this program I was shocked! I had created something, my first product, and it was actually helping my own tribe! Was it about the money? Sure money the money was nice and felt good. But something else felt even better. It felt amazing that I created something that was helping people. For me that meant more than the money in the bank!

Added Affiliates

The same month I launched Find Your Tribe Online, I got requests from people to be an affiliate for the program. I had no idea how to do that. I turned to Suzi because I knew she had an affiliate program for Blog By Number. She showed me how to set up an affiliate program with SendOwl. So easy!

I launched the affiliate program 10 days after I launched the course. I had 19 people sign up that first month! In the first month the affiliates sold 10 copies of Find Your Tribe Online. Since the launch my affiliates have sold 81 copies of Find Your Tribe Online.

I love having affiliates for my program! I know some people may look at it as taking sales away that they could earn 100% of the profits on. I look at it the exact opposite. First I don’t think I would get these sales if not for my affiliates. They are doing the hard work and advocating for the program. It’s amazing! It’s like having my own sales force for Find Your Tribe Online. Even better my affiliates use FYTO so they know it works. They get to sell a program they believe in.

There is another benefit to having affiliates for my program. One that is intrinsic and I didn’t even realize until I experienced it first hand. I have created a program that my affiliates are selling and making a commission from. That commission helps them pay for groceries, doctor bills, extra play dates out with their kids.

The reason I know this is because I have affiliates that have emailed me and told me how this commission has helped them. Something I have created with my own brain is having that kind of impact on other people’s lives. It is mind blowing and it is humbling. I am so glad I decided to add an affiliate program to Find Your Tribe Online. It has been more rewarding than I ever thought it would be!

Find Your Tribe Online the Course

Around the middle of September, our wise friend Suzi said to me, “You should turn Find Your Tribe Online into a course.”

I made a huge mistake and did not take Suzi’s advice.

Instead, I went out there and created two new programs, The Society of Winning Women and The 30 Day Marketing Plan for Bloggers. It’s a common entrepreneurial mistake. You have a product that sells on its own and instead of expanding on it or growing it, you go create something else. This is a common entrepreneurial trap and I fell right into it.

Suzi being the good friend that she is, kept nudging me back to the course idea for Find Your Tribe Online. I finally admitted to her I was scared to do it. I was scared that I had nothing else to offer for a course. I have Suzi’s Blog By Number book and the course. The book is great and the course has even more content which is amazing. I didn’t think I had more content to give for a course. I thought I had given it all in the book.

When I confessed this to Suzi she said what you have to do is add videos, worksheets, and tutorials. Take the ideas you have in the book and expand on them. Bring greater detail into your ideas and your teaching.

I don’t know why but Suzi’s advice finally hit me in all the right places. I was in the middle of creating yet another course and her advice stopped me dead in my tracks. So I stopped and started creating the Find Your Tribe Online course.

I was still scared. What if no one bought it? Or worse what if people bought it and said there was no added value from the book they already purchased? But something in me told me to keep moving forward. That if I created it people would buy.

I launched the Find Your Tribe Online course on January 16th, 2017, five months after the book’s debut. I was excited, nervous, and filled with worry! Oh the joys of being an entrepreneur!

The results were incredible! I sold a total of 51 copies of the course. Nineteen copies were from people that had already bought the book. Those were the clients I was most worried about. Would they find that much more value in the course? Or would they feel like it was a repeat of the book?

It turns out I didn’t have to worry. I have received so many emails from clients that purchased both the book and the course, telling me how much they love the course. They love the way it is laid out. They love the videos and the detailed tutorials. They thank me for turning the book into a course.

I am so grateful for their support of Find Your Tribe Online. It has been a wild ride the last five months watching something I have created help so many people. I am also grateful for Suzi’s friendship and her sage advice to turn the book into a course.

Why Find Your Tribe Online Works

Since the launch of Find Your Tribe Online it has taken on a life of its own. There have been months I haven’t promoted it at all and it still sells 20-30 copies. I have thought about why it has worked so well for bloggers and there are three main reasons.

Saves Women Time

If there is one thing we mamas are short on that is time. There is never enough time in the day! It is hard to find time to blog, time to promote our posts, time to network with other bloggers.

The one thing that Find Your Tribe Online gives back to you is time. It took me 90+ hours to compile the spreadsheet with 407 Pinterest Group boards, 440 Facebook groups, and 165 popular bloggers over 25 niches. This also took me months and months to compile and update.  Find Your Tribe Online saves you time. Instead of spending time doing the research you can use the data on the spreadsheet. This will help your blog grow faster!

Clear Path

The data in Find Your Tribe Online is great, but it doesn’t work unless you know what do with it. This is something I struggled with early on in my blog. I knew what I had to do I just wasn’t sure how to implement it. When I was creating Find Your Tribe Online I wanted it to be more than just about the data. I wanted it to be a full blown marketing plan that you could implement to grow your blog. It seems like a lot of bloggers are wandering around in the dark after they start their blogs. I wanted to give them a clear path of what to do next through Find Your Tribe Online.

Community

Blogging alone is not very fun! It can be downright depressing! Find Your Tribe Online is more than just a course about getting more blog traffic. It teaches you how to find and build your own community. Other people in your niche that are passionate about the same topics you are and the topics you blog about. When you use Find Your Tribe Online you start building your own tribe, your own community. It sure does make blogging a lot less lonely!

How to Create Your Own Product

Remember how I told you I wanted to challenge the status quo that it takes years to make money blogging? I did and I was right. You can make money as a small blogger. I still haven’t hit 10,000 page views and my email list is at 1,500 people. 

But I figured out the key to making money blogging.

A loyal tribe,  knowing exactly what they are struggling with, and giving them a solution.

If you want to create your first product and are a small blogger I say go for it! You can make money as a small blogger! Here are the steps I would take to make it happen:

Build a loyal tribe of people

Get to know your readers as people, not numbers. What do they like, what don’t they like? Help them by answering their questions. Give them so much help so they see you as a resource and a friend. Do this because you care about them, not because you want to make money off of them someday.

Build an email list

Build your email list and send emails to your people. I had built an email list of people that I had been engaging with for 18 weeks before I asked for a sale. Provide a lot of value to your email list before you ask them to buy something from you. Then when you do that you can expect 20% of your sales will come from your email list automatically.

Ask questions

Then actively listen to them. Find out what they are struggling with. Pick up the phone and ask them questions. Send them surveys.

Brainstorm ideas for your first product

Then pick three ideas that you think will help your audience. Then survey your audience. Ask them if they would be interested in your three options. Determine the winner and start creating your product!

Prepare to launch

When I launched Find Your Tribe Online I didn’t send one email and post it once in my Facebook group and that’s it. I emailed and posted many times about Find Your Tribe Online. I still do! You can’t expect that everyone will buy it the first day. People are indecisive or they may forget about buying. Outta sight outta mind. You have to tell them that your product is out there.

Ask for testimonials

I was fortunate with Find Your Tribe Online that the testimonials came to me before I asked for them. Had they not I would have absolutely asked for them. Don’t be afraid to ask your clients how your product is working for them. In addition to testimonials, you will get valuable feedback. Take this feedback and make your product even better. When you do get those testimonials plaster it all over your sales page for your product. We live in the Amazon age where we like to see reviews of products before we buy. The same is true for your product! Share every testimonial you have on your sales page. This builds reader confidence in your product!

I hope that my story of creating and launching my first product as a small blogger encourages you! I know that you can do the same if you follow a good plan of building a loyal tribe. Take the time to get to know your tribe and pour a ton of value into them. When you do that and come from a place of serving others, your first product will be a success!

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Jen blogs at Women Winning Online where she teaches women what to do after they start their blogs. How to find their tribe, grow their blogs, and make money blogging. To learn about the best strategies to get more blog traffic, check out Jen’s free report “7 Steps to Grow Your Blog Traffic Fast.”